After twelve continuous hours, I almost have my GFBSD hybrid ready to come out of chroot and go onto it's own disk. That makes me somewhat happy. What makes me happier is switching over to my old, reliable Gentoo install so I could make some seeds. I've just uploaded .configs for 2.6.32-hardened-r145, 3.2.36-hardened, and 3.7.1-hardened-r2 in both x86 and x86_64 flavors. Enjoy!

I see, after looking at ur site I get the idea. It's helpful the explanations that you add after each option. Not explained in these terms 'if you don't know you don't need it' but with lay terms descriptions.

Basically, kernel seeds are pre-configured and the users only needs to pick the drivers from lspci -k to have a first boot functional box?

There's something I'd like to add that NONE of modern desktops need it and laptops (the latter just one). Since you go option by option whether it's needed or not these two can be discarded to save precious ram and cpu cycles.

PS/ mouse.
AT keyboard.

In fact these two options depend on this thing SERIO_I8042 that in turn take up TWO interrupts usually 1 and 12. Then put some boot options to disable scanning this stuff.

In modern mobos evdev and usb modules handle mouse and keyboard just fine.

I think it's an intriguing idea. I'd be interested to see how well it works. I'd be most interested in what that would do to stability. If it works and I don't notice the change, except for a few less lines in /var/log/dmesg, then I'd add it to a growing list of setting changes. I think I'll test it out on a kernel that hasn't been all that stable. It might seem like an unfair test, but I really don't want to add anything to the seeds that might add to instability.

Upon just slight investigation, that's a no go as seed settings. I lost my touch pad. Nope. No bueno. My philosophy on the seed is that if any of the settings break any of my systems, it's never going to find its way into a seed. I just can't put settings in the seeds that might limit the useability. I never know where they're going to end up, and I'd rather be more inclusive than exclusive.

Now, if a user knows they have no PS/2 devices, such as desktops and servers with empty PS/2 ports, then it's not an issue, and you get to have the CPU cycles. I am actually going to make the changes on my headless machines as I can't find any of my old PS/2 keyboards; just the old, dependable, Dell USB special.

It's a good idea if you can get away with it. Seriously, I am going to reconfigure the headless horsemen when I get done with this message.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# noatime turns off atimes for increased performance (atimes normally aren't
# needed); notail increases performance of ReiserFS (at the expense of storage
# efficiency). It's safe to drop the noatime options if you want and to
# switch between notail / tail freely.
#
# The root filesystem should have a pass number of either 0 or 1.
# All other filesystems should have a pass number of 0 or greater than 1.
#
# See the manpage fstab(5) for more information.
#

The way you tested this right away shows how tweaked you like to have the kernels, well this is a piece that's not necessary when usb is used. I thought it could be added on your descriptions, who wants their cpu doing unnecessary excercises?

There's something I'd like to add that NONE of modern desktops need it and laptops (the latter just one). Since you go option by option whether it's needed or not these two can be discarded to save precious ram and cpu cycles.

PS/ mouse.
AT keyboard.

In fact these two options depend on this thing SERIO_I8042 that in turn take up TWO interrupts usually 1 and 12. Then put some boot options to disable scanning this stuff.

In modern mobos evdev and usb modules handle mouse and keyboard just fine.

I use a number of rather old machines for dedicated utility functions, and I run them headless except for a KVM switch so I can control them during boot, BIOS setups, etc. AS you already know, I use an ipeps KVM-over-ip device so I can remotely adminster these boxes. This whole setup relies upon PS2 keyboard and mouse interfaces. *PLEASE* do not eliminate these from your seeds! _________________The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword

Even a case of stomach flu doesn't stop the seeds from coming. It stops almost everything else, but not new seeds. I've just uploaded .configs for 3.0.58, 3.4.25, 3.7.2, and 3.7.2-gentoo in both x86 and x86_64 flavors. Enjoy!

As I've said many times before, the seeds are meant to allow the most access by the most people to the most used settings. While freeing IRQ12 might have meant a lot in the days when we were practically limited to sixteen overall, now that we have IRQ multiplexing and such, there really is no pressing need to free up one extra, especially when that freeing up process forces computers to fall outside of what a kernel seed will support hardware wise.

I tried your setup on my headless machines, and one loved it, vis a vis, IRQ12 fell from /var/log/dmesg. On the other, IRQ12 did show up, but wasn't linked to anything. I'd call that a fifty-percent return rate on an investment in time and effort. That's hardly the kind of result that I'd want for my seeds.

I'll say it again, for those who have no PS/2 hardware, yes, by all means, if you want to save one IRQ and the associated CPU cycles, go ahead. It won't kill the machine, and if you're in the lucky fifty percent, then IRQ12 will be freed. If you're not, then it won't, but at least it won''t be polling, or otherwise taking up CPU cycles, at least if the hype is correct.

Moriah,

I don't change the seed settings unless there is a real need, or in case it will serve the users better. I know too many users who have laptops that still use the PS/2 interface for both keyboard and mouse. Perhaps that will change in the near future, but even if it does, I will still support the legacy hardware. The PS/2 settings are quite safe at this point, and will remain so as long as I have a machine that fails because of a missing setting in the seeds.

Dark Foo,

Sorry about the time it's taken to get to you. I'll check out your .config after I check the rest of my emails for the day, and be sure that my write access is returned to one of my mirrors. This stomach flu, or whatever it is, has laid me low for the past three days. I'm hoping the worst is over at this point. I think it might be, but I thought so yesterday as well.

Pappy, I noticed you have ext4 support switched off. I presume this is because the seeds are meant for use with the basic default Gentoo x86 handbook instructions which uses ext2 and ext3 partitions. I think many people would opt for ext4 support and I was wondering why you didn't just turn off ext2 and ext3 and use:

Allow the ext4 file system driver code to be used for ext2 or
ext3 file system mounts. This allows users to reduce their
compiled kernel size by using one file system driver for
ext2, ext3, and ext4 file systems.

Kinda seems to get the job done rather efficiently and ext3 does not have the functionality of ext4 so I question how many people actually use it for a main root partition. Anyways, just a thought.

Also, this guide is great. Had I only known about it a week ago I would have saved myself over 100 hours of experimentation with compiling the .config file. I'm so glad you've done all this work so we can benefit from it.

I use ext2 for my /boot filesystem, but it is not a partition; it is a little USB stick. It has the kernel image and grub and so forth, but uses an initramfs to allow the root filesystem to be fully encrypted. The root filesystem is on a raid mirror that is built right on top of the raw drives, again with no partitioning. The encryption is done on top of the raid device, and them lvm is on top of that. Finally, an xfs filesystem sits on top of the whole thing.

So for a system like this, I only need the device mapper for lvm and raid, support for the xfs filesystem, and support for ext2 to allow me to update the boot stick.

If I had to use ext4 instead of ext2, it would actually make my system bigger, not smaller!

What Pappy has done is provide the bare minimum needed to get your box booted up an running, and then each sysadm customizes it from there. If you do not want ext2 or ext3, then take it out of your kernel. If you want something fancier (like I do) then customize to you hearts wildest dreams. _________________The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword

If I had to use ext4 instead of ext2, it would actually make my system bigger, not smaller!

You can turn the journal off.
I use ext4 everywhere on new installs, with and without a journal, with assorted block sizes and inode rations.
Be careful not to use a 1k block size filesystem on a 4k physical block size drive._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

When I first began working with the seeds, ext4 was experimental, in the bad sense of the word. I have heard that it's gotten better, but it's still a bit too experimental for me to support. I've also dealt with other users who have found it to be, shall we say a bit on the delicate side. I've used ext2 and ext3, and have reiserfs as a result. I also don't turn on XFS support, and a few others. I figure if you're going there, you know what you're doing better than I. The file systems I select in the seeds are mature enough that it doesn't matter whether I support them directly, as everyone and their brother knows someone with Ubuntu on ext3, and so on. While ext4 is getting there, it has some maturing left before I include it in the seeds.

And it already looks as if there are a couple of guys who are less than impressed. Thanks, but I'll wait. There are other settings infinitely more important. When I do take the week or two it will take to do a full update, it will be more about how certain things are done now in Gentoo as a matter of course, and which settings will be removed, not whether or not I add ext4 support.

I had planned on uploading some seeds yesterday, but things weren't working as well as I like. Fortunately, new days bring new resolutions to old issues. Today just brings lots of seeds. I've just uploaded .configs for 2.6.34.14, 3.0.59, 3.2.37, 3.4.26, 3.7.3, and 3.7.3-gentoo in both x86 and x86_64 flavors. Enjoy!

Hi,
I apologize if my question is too basic, but with the seeds config (x86_64-3.7.2) I don't find my wirless driver where I think it should be: Device Driver -> Network Device Support -> Wireless LAN. There are only four options to choose from whereas there should some forty, if I recall correctly. The modul is iwl3945

Also, my Kernel does not boot, rather runs into a kernel panic: not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown block(0,0)

I *think* I got the drivers right (atapiix) -- putting into account lspci -n's output --, and file system is ext4 which is compiled in. The block, however, should be somthing like (0,4) /dev/sda5, if 'block' really refers to the harddrive. fstab is set up accordingly.

As long as atapiix is compiled into the kernel (not set as a module), you have selected the proper file systems in the kernel, and your /etc/fstab points to properly mountable drives, you should at least be able to mount your root drive. That you can't points to one of those being incorrect.

If you get to a point where you'd like some other eyes to look at it, post your current .config using pastebin, along with the results of cat /proc/cpuinfo and your /etc/fstab file. I have years of experience working the bugs out of computers so they'll run Linux.

is likely to be a problem.
Thats how /dev nodes are made before udev gets started.

Code:

CONFIG_NTFS_FS=y
CONFIG_NTFS_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_NTFS_RW=y

isn't part of your problem but it doesn't do what you think it does. Turn those options off.
Kernel NTFS support used to be very broken. Its been rendered 'safe' by allowing it to only change NTFS file contents provided the file size does not change. You should use FUSE support in your kernel and emerge ntfs-3g (or is it ntfs3g) to get ntfs support.

Your kernel panic message would be very useful too ... if it ends in unknown-block(x,y) what are x and y ?_________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.